SOTU headline: Bush says Americans are "addicted to oil" -- which is like saying Americans are addicted to economic growth. (transcipt)Maybe he wants to distance himself from the oil industry, or to promote nuclear power.
On the one hand Bush takes credit for promoting economic growth. OTOH, he disparages oil consumption, which is the inevitable byproduct of that growth.
Complaining that we import oil from "unstable parts of the world," Bush set a goal by 2025 of replacing 75 percent of U.S. oil imports from the Middle East.
This is strange in a speech that also warned against the "false comfort of isolationism" ("In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline")
Wouldn't it be "isolationism and protectionism" to replace cheaper imported oil with higher-priced domestic energy? Of course it is.
If the U.S. reduced or even eliminated oil imports from the Middle East, that would accomplish nothing so long as our trading partners (Europe, Japan and China) continued to buy their oil from the Middle East, as they surely would.
Can anyone explain this incoherent nonsense about oil, coming from Bush and Cheney who supposedly represent the oil industry?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Addicted to oil
John writes:
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1 comment:
In school all we've talked about was the "addicted to oil" quote. The whole time though I had this annoying hop scotch song stuck in my head: I want to ride my bicycle, my bicycle...I want to ride my bicycle, my bicycle...
ps. I applied to UCSC, haven't heard back yet.
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